When Puritans settlers first arrived in New England, they brought with them a passion for the Hebrew Bible and a desire to model themselves after the ancient Israelites—and, moreover, a belief that contemporary Jews, as God’s chosen people, deserved their respect and tolerance. Michael Medved traces the various manifestations of this sentiment from English Puritans to John Adams. Perhaps the most striking example he cites is that of Ezra Stiles:

Despite [their] intense identification with ancient Israel, few Americans ever got the chance to explore either the wisdom of the past or the prospects for the future with their Jewish contemporaries. One of the exceptions was Ezra Stiles (1727–1795), the seventh president of Yale and an influential minister and scholar. Before assuming his most celebrated position in New Haven, Connecticut, he spent twenty years pastoring a major church in Newport, Rhode Island. During that time, Stiles made a point of frequent visits to the small, struggling synagogue that had managed to survive for more than a hundred years despite the lack of meaningful growth in the Jewish population.

Unlike [the earlier Massachusetts theologian] Cotton Mather, who expressed the hope that even the religious Jews he so passionately esteemed would ultimately find their way to Christianity, Stiles expected [Jews] to remain fully Jewish and became excited by visions of what Jews and Christians might achieve together. . . . In particular, Stiles believed that the ultimate “return of the twelve tribes to the Holy Land” might well occur at any time, igniting an explosion of faith that would enable believers “to convert a world.”

To Medved, the notion that the fates of America and the Jews were intertwined took on a new life, and a new meaning, when masses of European Jews began coming to the U.S. in the 1880s, inspiring the country’s best-known Jewish poet:

While establishing a truly international reputation, Emma Lazarus focused scant attention on her own Jewish heritage, but when she was thirty-one, the vicious pogroms following the assassination of the tsar sparked a passion for self-discovery. She . . . organized charitable efforts to aid the penniless Russian hordes who began washing into New York City, while . . . defending them, fiercely, from anti-Semitic taunts in the public press. Her contact with these destitute dreamers fueled her pride in the Jewish past and her visions for a grandiose future, as her poetry suddenly burned with exhortation and purpose: “Wake, Israel, wake! Recall to-day/ The glorious Maccabean rage . . .”

[One] handwritten sonnet simultaneously expressed her tenderness for the desperate new arrivals fleeing starvation and the tsar while exulting in the epochal role of America as refuge and redeemer. The Jewish view of the United States as a supernatural sanctuary in a harsh, hostile world has never been expressed more movingly or memorably.

That handwritten sonnet, of course, is “The New Colossus,” inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty.

In 2003, the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, spooked by the American display of might in Iraq, decided to destroy or surrender his entire nuclear program. Informed observers have suggested that the deal he made with the U.S. should serve as a model for any agreement with Iran. Robert Joseph provides some useful background:

Gaddafi had convinced himself that Libya would be next on the U.S. target list after Iraq. There was no reason or need to threaten Libya with bombing as Gaddafi was quick to tell almost every visitor that he did not want to be Saddam Hussein. The images of Saddam being pulled from his spider hole . . . played on his mind.

President Bush’s goal was to have Libya serve as an alternative model to Iraq. Instead of war, proliferators would give up their nuclear programs in exchange for relief from economic and political sanctions.

Any outcome that permits Iran to enrich uranium at any level will fail the one standard that President Trump has established: Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Limiting enrichment even to low levels will allow Iran to break out of the agreement at any time, no matter what the agreement says.

Iran is not a normal government that observes the rules of international behavior or fair “dealmaking.” This is a regime that relies on regional terror and brutal repression of its citizens to stay in power. It has a long history of using negotiations to expand its nuclear program. Its negotiating tactics are clear: extend the negotiations as long as possible and meet any concession with more demands.